They met in the darkness. Brandon a mortal. Ezekiel a Shifter.
Their meeting will be the first dominoes in an epic saga that branches through not only time, but blood as well. Broken bonds will come too light. The shadows of this world will be forced into the light. And trapped beneath the cogs of fate will be Brandon and Ezekiel. Two beings that were never supposed to meet.
PART ONE- THE MEETING

Their meeting will be the first dominoes in an epic saga that branches through not only time, but blood as well. Broken bonds will come too light. The shadows of this world will be forced into the light. And trapped beneath the cogs of fate will be Brandon and Ezekiel. Two beings that were never supposed to meet.

They met in the darkness. Brandon a mortal. Ezekiel a Shifter. <br />
<br />
Their meeting will be the first dominoes in an epic saga that branches through not only time, but blood as well. Broken bonds will come too light. The shadows of this world will be forced into the light. And trapped beneath the cogs of fate will be Brandon and Ezekiel. Two beings that were never supposed to meet.<br />
<br />
PART 1- THE MEETING

Chapter Content - ver.1

Submitted: July 01, 2015

Reads: 11830

Comments: 5

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Chapter Content - ver.1

Submitted: July 01, 2015

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TALES OF A SHIFTER BOOK 1
BROKEN BOND
WRITTEN BY; CRIMSON PETALS

Our broken bonds shattered time. It ended the pain.
It created loss. It was all that remained.

Our broken bonds took my life.
Our broken claims stole my sight.

We couldn’t look. We failed to see.

Our broken bonds trapped us.
Our broken bonds defined us.

We didn’t fight it. We didn’t correct it.

Our broken bonds were. Our broken bonds are.

Our broken bond is all that was left.
But now in this light…..maybe new bonds will somehow form.

- Written by CrimsonPetals

CHAPTER 1

(The gossamer moon was the only sentinel to witness or tenuous beginnings.)
-Unknown

Brandon burst out of the woods. A fine mist of droplets fell from the pine needles over head, down into his dirty blond hair. The water saturated him. Plastering the few dry strands left down onto
his scalp, forehead, and temples. His wet clothes clung to him and made his thin cheeks and dark rimmed eyes seem all the more devastating.

Brandon whipped away a cool droplet from his skin, fighting not to shiver and failing miserably. “Damn forest! It’s freezing!!.” He panted shallowly as he moved forward and asked himself. “Where
the hell am I anyway!?”

Brandon pushed through another water soaked pine branch and gritted his teeth as the cold dew, drenched him once more. His soggy ashy blue jeans and thin black t-shirt gripped his flesh with
a sharp bite.

Clingy and cold like ice. While his shoes were soggy and two days from falling off his feet completely.

Shaking away the cold he tried to motivate himself.

“Keep going Brandon….Don’t think, just move your feet.” Brandon whispered to himself. Egging himself on. He knew that he had to keep moving.

The crunch of the pine needles beneath his rapid, stumbling steps, were muffled by the trees all around him. They blotted out the expanse of the sky, only allowing Brandon disconcerting hints of
stars, clouds, and some small silvery shafts of moonlight; that far from illuminated his way deeper into the darkness.

Unluckily more often than not Brandon found himself running full on into one tree after another. But if someone had asked him, he would have been hard pressed to choose between the lack of
light or the giant hole in his side that was causing him to traverse the darkness in a drunken, painful slump.

Brandon slipped, his heavy feet knocking each other turning his stumble into a full on face pant into the soil, but at the last moment Brandon raised his hands from his stomach and snatched
at the tree beside him. His nails scratched into the bark. Chips and splinters, shoved themselves underneath his nails, releasing the heavy scent of pine and sap.....and blood.

Biting his lip as the pain subsided, Brandon tried to catch his breath. He slowly came around to looking at his throbbing fingertips.

In the sad light of the moon Brandon looked at his hands for the first time in hours.

Ignoring the stiff sting of wood under his nails, he stared grimly at his blood soaked fingers and forearms and then sighed. Brandon knew without looking at the rest of himself that his
entire lower shirt, and right pants leg were drenched in coppery fresh blood. His blood. And he also knew that there was enough blood in the soil behind him that it should have killed him by
now.

Surely he was already dying.

Fresh blood painted his hand, his stomach, it dripped steadily from the cuff of his right pants legs down into the scrub beneath him. Gleaming like bright red paint there was even a thin trickle of
blood running from his cheek and lips where distinct gashes and a large painful bruise were just beginning to take purplish black definition.

Brandon stared at his blood covered appendages a moment or two longer trying to gather the strength, no. The Will to move.

Brandon leaned awkwardly on that tree. Which was honestly the only thing keeping him on his bone tired feet and tried to ignore the blood that gushed out of the wound in his side every
single time that he took a breath.

With every little wave of watery warmth that flowed down his hips, to further drench his pants, Brandon grew groggier, weaker.

But with every scrap of power still left in his body he refused to pass out. Even as the fatigue of his journey slammed into his lungs and made his knees shake.

I won’t stop….I can’t…
He told himself.

But deeper than that he was afraid to stop.

Brandon’s raised his head and slammed his fist into the trunk savagely. And welcomed the pain that came with that. Determination and sorrow warred there in his groggy green eyes.

"No." he whispered angrily to himself, barley having the strength to move his lips. "You are not going to make this easy for them! If this is the night that they finally catch up to you
Brandon....By god you’re going to make the bastards work for it!" He lectured himself raising his head, to glare into the darkness before him; as though his enemies’ were there in the
shadows, not somewhere behind him, chasing him.

Like rabid dogs after a new born fawn.

Pick up your feet and MOVE!!!!

He shouted inwardly. And somehow he did move.

Brandon groaned as he dropped his bloody arms back to his sides and forced his tired legs to bend.

He couldn’t help but shiver as more blood gushed out of the gaping hole in his side to splash across his hip. That terrible feeling made him want to throw up. A continuous sickly
warm flow on his legs as the blood fled his veins.

Somehow feeling cold and numb all at once Brandon took one step, then another. The time fell away as he kept moving forward. Soon he was melding with the darkness even as his skin paled more and
more in the slight moonlight.

You do well to paint the scene of desperate will and certain courage not to give up. You feel endeared to Brandon although you do not know yet the cause of his plight. You feel the urge to keep reading, to ask the question, why and so then you care to learn more about this remarkable young man. Excellent writing, Crim. Thanks for the invite. I will be reading on. :)

AuthorReply

Comment | 49 words

Thu, October 6th, 2016 8:54pm

Oh thank u for the steller comments and I'll be looking forward to hearing from u more. I love all of my characters and I was overjoyed that you liked Brandons opening moments !

First impression- Wow, 98 chapters. I've never written anything that long, at least not alone. I'm sure my collaborative works with close friends are well beyond 98 chapters altogether. Still, to reach a milestone that big, very well done. Remember that writing always evolves and improves the older you get.

Chapter 1- The intro poem was great. Not corny, long or dramatic, and written with a purpose. I liked it very much. No one really thinks about it, but it's very difficult to write good, meaningful poetry that doesn't come out sounding corny or way too long. So, right off the bat, excellent.

VERY nice intro. Grabs your attention from the beginning and holds it hostage as you wonder what happened to the guy, whether he deserved it or not, and just who's after him. Great use of the senses...the scent of blood, the wetness and cold, his fading vision, the sound of his own stumbling steps and his breathing. Four out of the five senses right there in the first chapter. And, hell, if you count the 'rabid dogs after a newborn fawn' part, then it's IMPLIED taste.

Alright, please allow me to start this off by saying this chapter is very very well done. As such I feel the only way I can offer any kind of constructive commentary is by nitpicking the holy hell out of it. So please keep in mind that no matter what I say below, I only do so because your overall writing skill is so high that I think you can handle a bit of nitpicking, as that is the only thing I can offer that could possibly improve what you’ve already done.

That being said I will never point out any spelling or grammar mistakes, partly because I have a hard time noticing them but mostly because my own spelling and grammar are atrociously bad (which is probably why I don’t notice it in others…) What I will point out are issues of flow, word choice, and sometimes formatting. These are all meer suggestions and should be taken as such, some may be personal preference and others may be advice I have received and feel should be passed on (even if I don’t always implement it as well as I should myself).

Let us begin!

The first thing I noticed even before I began reading was the formating. Though centering in the poem is appropriate I think the story itself should be aligned to the left in a more standard easy to read format. I think once that is done it’s a little easier to see a few places where your smaller paragraphs can be brought together. The first one that caught my attention was paragraph 3 and 4, “Brandon pushed through another water soaked pine branch and gritted his teeth as the cold dew, drenched him once more. His soggy ashy blue jeans and thin black t-shirt gripped his flesh with a sharp bite. [line break] Clingy and cold like ice. While his shoes were soggy and two days from falling off his feet completely.” these lines both describe his clothing and the fact that it is wet (very well described by the way) so I think they should really be together in one paragraph.

Similar can be said for the little bit after, when Brandon is attempting to motivate himself the statement that he is making that effort and his spoken effort itself can be brought together into one paragraph.

Your word choices are as well done as the rest of your writing, though if you really wanted to you could probably reread and change just a few very small things to reduce redundancy. The first and only really glaring example that popped up was in the first paragraph last sentence: “His wet clothes clung to him and made his thin cheeks and dark rimmed eyes seem all the more devastating.” again incredibly well written and described, but the word “wet” feels unnecessary and redundant because the entire first half of the paragraph before the line did a good job letting us know that he was wet and that the water was affecting the rest of his description.

Also in the first paragraph I would recommend changing the word “out” from “Baradon Burst out of the woods.” it gives great explosive energy but it also implies that he has left the woods when he is in fact still in them. Just something a little different like “through the trees,” or adding, “into a clearing.” whatever it would be up to you.

I have to say I quite admire Brandon, he is doing an incredible job not only staying conscious but continuing forward considering his wounds. I also really like the implied history, at first I thought maybe he didn’t know what was chasing him or why but as it went on we learn that this is probably not the first run-in he’s had with the assholes that hurt him. As I said before I am a slow reader because I like to write something for each chapter and considering how incredibly long (impressively so) this story is it will probably take me a while to get through it. If there is ever anything specific you want an opinion on please don’t hesitate to ask as I am a highly opinionated person :P

AuthorReply

Comment | 166 words

Fri, May 18th, 2018 4:24pm

Love. Love. Love. Thank u for this impressive review. I am always looking for constructive stuff to take in and use because as long as it ain't given to me in a vicious or negative manner it can only help me be a better writer and that's something that I would love to be.

But just as a warning I have had another reviewer already point out to me that my chapters are not as long as they should be or that I have cut them off at bad places. I apologize in advance for that and I try not to do it in latter parts. Other than that critqe away by I also humbly ask that you enjoy this story too...if you can. And as a side request please give me a few pointers on my description of certain fight scenes because that is something that i fear i need more description in. Or better flow.